Macau’s gaming industry has shown resilience in a seasonal low month, with its mass gross gaming revenue (GGR) still at 110-115 percent of 1Q19 levels, says UBS.
In the latest investment memo, UBS notes that Macau’s GGR in the last seven days was maintained at MOP629 million ($78.2 million) per day, on par with the run rate in the preceding week.
‘Assuming mass to account for 85-90 percent of the GGR mix, mass GGR would be tracking at 110-115 percent of Q119 level.’
Month-to-date GGR tracked at MOP621 million ($77.2 million) per day, down only 3 percent month-over-month and appears to ‘fare better than historical seasonality’.
The analysts note that during March in 2015-19, the GGR daily run rate was down 9 percent month-over-month. Between the segments, MoM change in VIP volume would be in the range of 2-4 percent with a win rate at 2.8-3 percent, while mass GGR was flat MoM, based on channel checks.
Macau tourism office (MGTO) mentioned that the daily average visitation to Macau is expected to exceed 100,000 during the upcoming Easter holiday (March 29th- April 1st for Hong Kong) and the Ching Ming Festival (Apr 4th-6th for Mainland China and Apr 4th for Hong Kong).
The target of 100,000 exceeds the current non-holiday daily numbers, which range from 70,000 to 80,000.
Macau’s tourism chief remarked that during both festival periods, they do not anticipate visitor traffic to match that of the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday.
During the CNY break, which lasted from February 10th to February 17th on the Mainland this time, Macau welcomed nearly 1.36 million overall visitor arrivals, averaging close to 170,000 per day.
In another investment memo, analysts from Citigroup note that they ‘conservatively keep our March 2024 GGR forecast unchanged at MOP19.5 billion ($2.42 billion)’, which is about 75 percent of the March 2019 levels, implying GGR to average MOP657 million ($81.7 million) per day for the rest of the month as it is approaching Easter holidays.
